a stranger to you. When I married this gentleman, he had
a very handsome estate; but, upon buying a set of microscopes, he was
chosen a _Fellow of the Royal Society; from which time I do not remember
ever to have heard him speak as other people did_, or talk in a manner
that any of his family could understand him. He used, however, to pass
away his time very innocently in conversation with several members of
that learned body: for which reason I never advised him against their
company for several years, until at last I found his brain quite turned
with their discourses. The first symptoms which he discovered of his
being a _virtuoso_, as you call him, poor man! was about fifteen years
ago; when he gave me positive orders to turn off an old weeding woman,
that had been employed in the family for some years. He told me, at the
same time, that there was no such thing in nature as a weed, and that it
was his design to let his garden produce what it pleased; so that, you
may be sure, it makes a very pleasant show as it now lies. About the
same time he took a humour to ramble up and down the country, and would
often bring home with him his pockets full of moss and pebbles. This,
you may be sure, gave me a heavy heart; though, at the same time, I must
needs say, he had the character of a very honest man, notwithstanding
he was reckoned a little weak, until he began to sell his estate, and
buy those strange baubles that you have taken notice of. Upon
midsummerday last, as he was walking with me in the fields, he saw a
very odd-coloured butterfly just before us. I observed that he
immediately changed colour, like a man that is surprised with a piece of
good luck; and telling me that it was what he had looked for above these
twelve years, he threw off his coat, and followed it. I lost sight of
them both in less than a quarter of an hour; but my husband continued
the chase over hedge and ditch until about sunset; at which time, as I
was afterwards told, he caught the butterfly as she rested herself upon
a cabbage, near five miles from the place where he first put her up. He
was here lifted from the ground by some passengers in a very fainting
condition, and brought home to me about midnight. His violent exercise
threw him into a fever, which grew upon him by degrees, and at last
carried him off. In one of the intervals of his distemper he called to
me, and, after having excused himself for running out his estate, he
told me that he